The quality of service and customer experience of subscribers of a communication network can significantly affect a network service provider's business. Customers are prone to switch service providers, such as their cell phone carrier, if they experience problems with their service, e.g. bad coverage, dropped calls, slow data transfer speeds, etc. It is important for service providers to be aware of problems their subscribers are experiencing so the problem can be proactively addressed and resolved.
There are disadvantages associated with current mechanisms by which service providers monitor issues customers are having with communications services. Historically, customers have had to call customer care when they experience difficulties with their services. This practice places the burden on the customer to report problems and can be quite time-consuming and frustrating to the customer.
Alternatively, some devices, e.g., some mobile phones, can have installed software to collect and store that device's usage data to be reported to the service provider when a customer experiences an issue. However, this type of software consumes the internal memory of the phone as it must store a large amount of data about the device, and its usage, on the device itself, to later be communicated to the service provider. Additionally, such installed software may only be capable of generating reports and may not be integrated with other network monitoring capabilities of a service provider.
Some networks have probe-based monitoring systems that copy signaling and bearer channel data at various network interfaces. Such systems are designed to monitor message traffic for accounting security, network planning, and other purposes. However, such probe-based network monitoring systems fall short of proactively addressing customer quality of service issues.
Accordingly, in light of these disadvantages associated with conventional monitoring of network subscribers, there exists a need for improved methods and systems for service providers to automatically monitor, in the network, customers experiencing quality of service issues.